Ram Sagar had been driving his colourfully
decorated carriage through the picturesque country roads ever since
he had been a young man and he was thoroughly content with his laid
back life. There was no dearth of passengers who alighted from the
trains that trundled up to the riverside railway station and limbered
up towards the horse-drawn carriages which took them to their
respective villages dotting the banks of the mighty Narmada. The
hilly terrain interspersed with lush green fields of mustard and corn
irrigated by the inexhaustible foaming white waters of the great
river offered a treat to the eyes and a comfortable life for the five
thousand humble people.

While reclining on his couch and waiting for
the three passenger trains that halted briefly at the small station
everyday he often glanced over the pages of the newspapers. He was
aware of the developments sweeping the nation. Most of the news
though didn’t really excite him while some proved
incomprehensible to his simple mind. But a few stirred him up and
made him wonder at the future. Among those was the news that the
government was going to build a huge dam on the river. However, it
didn’t concern him unduly until one day, when he read something
that really unsettled him. They were going to begin work on the
monster project shortly.

He wasn’t afraid though, for he believed
that the colossus project wouldn’t be ready in his lifetime
given the tardiness of the bureaucracy and the slothful progress of
government projects. But he was wrong.

When the rains stopped and a pleasant chill
kissed the evening air monstrous machines with grotesque arms and
claws and their helmeted masters arrived from nowhere and set up
tents. In the following days they climbed upon the machines and
embarked upon their job. With terrifying noise and ruthless
efficiency they mowed down the forests, gnawed at the earth like
demons and flattened down the ravines. Then, with huge blasts they
ripped down the hills and built roads and embankments. The
frightening pace of their work unsettled Ram and made him wonder
about the disaster staring the villagers in the face.

As the work progressed furiously, the landscape
of the village began to change in ways both strange and ugly. The
hillocks began to disappear under tons of mud and rocks and the
pastures and rolling glades where the cattle grazed and the village
boys played earlier began to be replaced by mysterious mountains of
sand and mortar. The ravines were flattened and the gorges were
widened with powerful blasts. As concerns mounted among the villagers
about their fate they united to voice their protests and demands.
Faced with imminent displacement they turned violent and vent their
anger at the contractors and the local government. Ram Sagar watched
in horror as regular conflicts between the protestors and police
shattered the reigning peace and tranquillity and affected the
agrarian economy of his village and scores of other surrounding
villages. Soon rights activists, lawyers and politicians descended
upon the place in hordes. And trailing them arrived the media people
with their cameras and bizarre gadgets. They also brought with them
the vices of the modern society.

Months elapsed, seasons changed and years
chased one another as time continued its eternal journey. But neither
the construction work nor the protests and meetings stopped. In fact,
the concrete walls and embankments rose higher and higher at a fast
pace.

One rainy afternoon as Ram crouched in a corner
of the platform the Station Master strolled up to him and said,
“Ram
Sagar, this station will be no more; they’re going to relocate
it some 30 kilometres to the north.” Ram Sagar gazed mournfully
at the Station Master’s dispassionate face and asked, “Sir,
are you sure?” “Oh yes, I’ve got the official news
yesterday,” he replied gravely.

Nevertheless, the trains continued to chug into
the station as usual and Ram Sagar continued to drive his passengers
to their destinations. Eight years elapsed before one chilly morning
when the trains finally stopped running along the tracks. Ram climbed
upon the deserted platform and jumped down on the tracks. As far as
he could see there was not a moving object over it. He sat down on
the rails and began to cry like a child. Except perhaps those cows
and goats wandering merrily across the unguarded platform there was
not a soul to take notice of his dismay.

Notwithstanding the painful fact that the
railway station had ceased to exist for all practical reasons, every
morning Ram fastened his horse to the carriage as usual and drove up
to the abandoned station like a ghost. It had become almost a daily
ritual for him which he found very hard to discard so abruptly.

A few months later a police van with a
loudspeaker mounted on its bonnet drove into the village and
announced, “Villagers, the sluice gates will fall soon and you
are going to drown like rats. Leave this place within a week.”
The poor villagers realised they had lost the unequal battle for
justice and survival. So they quietly but reluctantly left their
homes and farmlands with their meagre belongings and their cattle in
a procession of bullock carts. In the end only the very old, the
crippled and the insane were left behind. But Ram Sagar was the lone
exception. He decided to stay back, because the cascading river, the
gorges cut in marble rock, the ravines, the dense jungles, the
meandering dusty streets and the wooden bridges, everything was part
of his life. He felt he could not adapt to a different lifestyle and
survive at some other distant place. In any case, he knew he had no
duties to perform, no obligations to keep; he was unmarried and
alone.

On the designated day a serpentine convoy of
hooting cars with flashing lights arrived and the Minister descended
upon the village with his cronies, bureaucrats and a host of media
people. After a brief ceremony watched upon by only the bureaucrats
and the media the huge sluice gates were dropped and the river was
allowed to flow into the dam. As millions of gallons of foaming water
crashed into the dam enclosure at a tremendous speed the earth
trembled and the peculiar noise of a hundred thunderbolt reverberated
across the hills.

The rising water engulfed one village after
another as it surged to submerge 40000 hectares of forest and arable
land. When the water entered his house and floated his wooden cot, he
jumped on to his carriage and tugged at the reins. The horse broke
into a trot and then galloped along the street steadily climbing up
towards the erstwhile station. But the rapidly swirling waters chased
them all the while. It drowned everything in its way.

When Ram Sagar reached the wooden bridge above
a stream flowing below the hill he pulled the reins. Then he patted
and kissed his horse for the last time and set it free. Standing
alone on the bridge in waist-deep water he gazed wistfully at the
rising sea of water all around. Then turning his eyes towards the
setting sun he folded his hands to pray for the last time. None but
the crimson sky and the old priest of the Shiva temple atop the hill
were witness to his final moments.